


Whumptober by Night

by cordsycords



Category: L.A. By Night (Web Series)
Genre: Multi, Prompt Fic, Whumptober, Whumptober 2019
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-06
Updated: 2019-11-06
Packaged: 2020-12-28 16:03:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 32
Words: 7,244
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21139370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cordsycords/pseuds/cordsycords
Summary: Prompt Fills for Whumptober 2019.Please read the Table of Contents for more detailed Characters/Pairings/Trigger Warnings for each chapter.





	1. Table Of Contents

Welcome to my prompt fills for Whumptober 2019! I've compiled them all in one helpful repository so that they're all in one place. I spent a lot of time considering putting each fic separately into the archive, and then putting them all into a series, but decided against it because of how small the LA BY Night tag is. I didn't want you all to be inundated with 31 different fics blocking the first page or so of the tag, so here we are.

Since putting all these ficlets in one place makes tagging a little difficult, I've decided to make a table of contents to summarize all the Character, Pairing, and Trigger Warnings for each chapter. If you find a ficlet you'd like to read (hooray!) click on the heading, and it'll take you directly to the chapter. Note that **this only works if you're reading in Entire Work mode, not Chapter by Chapter**. Once you're done reading, there will be a link in the author's notes of that chapter that will bring you right back up to the table of contents where you left it! Easy peasy!

As always, please enjoy! And don't forget to leave kudos + comment if you read something you like :)

######  01\. shaky hands

**Chracters: **Eva, Jasper  
**Relationships: **Eva/Jasper  
**Trigger Warning: **None  


######  02\. explosion

**Chracters: **Annabelle, Jasper, Nelli, Victor  
**Relationships: **None  
**Trigger Warning: **None  


######  03\. delirium

**Chracters: **Annabelle, Mark  
**Relationships: **Annabelle/Mark, Annabelle/Ellenore  
**Trigger Warning: **Mention of Character Death  


######  04\. human shield

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  


######  05\. gunpoint

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  


######  06\. dragged away

**Chracters: **Annabelle, Jasper, Nelli  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **Horror, Character Death  


######  07\. isolation

**Chracters: **Chaz, Nelli  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **Buried Alive  


######  08\. stab wound

**Chracters: **Annabelle, Jasper  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **Injury, Blood  


######  09\. shackled

**Chracters: **Annabelle, Jasper  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **Character Death  


######  10\. unconcious

**Chracters: **Eva, Jasper  
**Relationships: **Eva/Jasper  
**Trigger Warning: **None  


######  11\. stitches

**Chracters: **Eva, Greg  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **Mentions of Character Death, Blood  


######  12\. "don't move"

**Chracters: **Annabelle, Jasper  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **Body Horror  


######  13\. adrenaline

**Chracters: **Annabelle  
**Relationships: **None  
**Trigger Warning: **Character Death, Violence, Suicide  


######  14\. tear-stained

**Chracters: **Annabelle, Jasper, Nelli, Victor  
**Relationships: **Eva/Jasper  
**Trigger Warning: **None  


######  15\. scars

**Chracters: **Annabelle, Ellenore  
**Relationships: **Annabelle/Ellenore  
**Trigger Warning: **None  


######  16\. pinned down

**Chracters: **Nelli, Victor  
**Relationships: **Nelli/Victor  
**Trigger Warning: **Character Death  


######  17\. "stay with me"

**Chracters: **Chloe, Eva  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **Suicide  


######  18\. muffled scream

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  


######  19\. asphyxiation

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  


######  20\. trembling

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  


######  21\. laced drink

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  


######  22\. hallucination

**Chracters: **Jasper, Nelli, Victor, X  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **Character Death  


######  23\. bleeding out

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  


######  24\. secret injury

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  


######  25\. humiliation

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  


######  26\. abandoned

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  


######  27\. ransom

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  


######  28\. beaten

**Chracters: **Jasper, Strauss  
**Relationships: **Eva/Jasper  
**Trigger Warning: **Torture, Blood, Violence  


######  29\. numb

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  


######  30\. recovery

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  


######  31\. embrace

**Chracters: **  
**Relationships: **  
**Trigger Warning: **  



	2. shaky hands

###  shaky hands

Shaking hands drew inexact runes of protection in a semi-circle at the doorway as she mumbled the words under her breath, mispronounced and wrong. She knew it wouldn’t work before she was even finished the incantation, the flow of sorcery drying up in her veins as she continued through the failure. The runes soaked into packed earth of the labyrinth, dried and useless, as she stood up from where she was kneeling, dropping the smouldering wand of rowan wood to the floor.

“Is it done?” Jasper asked from behind her, slowly approaching her, still aware of the flaming tip of the wand.

She wrung her hands together, trying to tame them of their trembling before he saw, but he was too quick, appearing at the edge of her vision.

“Eva, what’s wrong?” He asked, trying to take his hands within hers, but she snapped them away.

“It… didn’t work,” she whispered into the darkness, finally admitting it to herself. It didn’t work, and that was the last wand, and hunger gnawed at her gut like a rabid dog does a bone.

“You, the others, I-- I can’t protect them.”

“Okay, it’s okay, c’mere,” he took her within his arms and she melted into his embrace.

“He’s coming for us.”

“I know.”

Her hands shook between them.

Return to TOC


	3. explosion

###  explosion

They stood several blocks away from Club Maharani, the top of the building barely towering over the low-lying structures around it. The pounding of the club’s bass-filled music couldn’t even be heard from so far away, though the glow of the club’s spotlights lit the heavy clouds in the night sky above them. Campbell stood with them, next to a pair of SUVs that would take them away from LA for good.

“I can’t believe we’re doing this,” Annabelle murmured, head bowed under the cover of her hood, pulled up to protect her from the light train that poured down from above.

“Me neither,” Jasper whispered behind her, hidden from view.

“I can’t believe another one of my clubs is about to go up in flames,” Victor said, dry and humourless and he looked on at what he had created, as choked up as he ever could get at the thought of destroying it.

Nelli walked up behind him, placing a comforting hand on his shoulder, “We need to make it look like an accident,” she said, ever the practical one among them.

“I know.”

“I hate this,” Annabelle whispered to Jasper, watching Nelli and Victor.

“Good. You’re supposed to hate this,” he said.

“All those people…” she trailed off.

“Some of them will get out.”

“That’s not enough.”

Victor brushed Nelli’s hand off of his shoulder, “Okay, let’s go. Campbell?”

“Yes, sir?”

“Do it.”

“Are you sure, sir?”

“No,” Victor shook his head, “No I’m not. Do it.”

“Yes, sir,” Campbell replied, taking the detonator out of his pocket.

Seconds later, the explosion rocked through the ground, debris shooting into the air as the flames lit the sky up in shades of bright orange. In an instant, it was over, followed by complete silence as the world waited to react to the sudden, unexpected destruction.

Jasper grasped at her shoulder, pulling her into the car. Nelli followed soon afterward.

She sat in the SUV, looking out the window to Victor, standing alone, his head bowed as sirens blared into the night sky.

Return to TOC


	4. delirium

###  delirium

Mark steadied himself in the back of the SUV as Campbell made a hasty escape, tires screeching against the pavement when he took a fast corner. Annabelle’s body shifted in arms, a quiet grumble of pain escaping from her lips.

“It’s okay Annie, we got ya,” Mark said to her, tempted to hold her close to him, but aware of the injuries covering her body. Her skin was marked with dark bruising, and cuts that were sealed shut with bright white scaring. Her hair was matted with blood, soaked from some type of hit taken to the head. She cradled her hand weakly against her chest, fingers twisted and mottled in all directions, unable to heal them into place in her current mental state.

She coughed into his chest, blood spraying on his sweater.

“‘M sorry,” she muttered weakly, injured hand going to wipe the stain before she hissed in pain.

“It’s okay, it’s fine,” he assured her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.

“I got bloo’ on y’r tux,” she said, eyes looking, unfocused, at his chest.

“What? What do you mean?”

“That’s okay, Eva can geddit out,” she continued, lifting her head to spot the white-haired woman in front of them, curled into the shoulder of a black hoodie, “Tremere shit.”

“Annie, what are you--”

“I can’t wait to see Elle,” she said, looking back at Mark, her brown eyes glazed over, lost in her own little world, “Nelli said her dress was beautiful.”

Mark swallowed stiffly, “Yeah, I’m sure it will be, babe.”

“Victor’s already at the chapel?” She asked, resting her cheek against him, hazy eyes staring at the tinted window.

He looked up at the rest of the car, spotting the white hair, and the black hoodie, and the red beret, mouth suddenly going dry, “Y-Y-Yeah, he’ll be there, babe.”

“Good,” Annabelle sighed, “He has to walk me down the aisle.”

Return to TOC


	5. human shield

###  human shield

Return to TOC


	6. gunpoint

###  gunpoint

Return to TOC


	7. dragged away

###  dragged away

The darkness enveloped them, cold and infinite, extending in every direction. They had all experienced this before, in the abyss of the mirror in the labyrinth, though only Jasper knew what it meant to be enthralled by the shadows of a Lasombra’s own making.

A very _angry_ Lasombra at that. And she had a right to be.

“You dare take him away from me!” Aurora’s voice echoed all around them, her grief affecting the shadows, making them lash out against the coterie with every cry.

Annabelle backed into the shadows, or at least attempted to do so. She felt as if she were floating through the dark space, her feet trying to find purchase on something that wasn’t really there, or was only there half the time, flitting in and out of existence. She moved slowly, farther and farther back, eyes flitting about everywhere they could, only to be faced with the unending darkness. In lieu of a heartbeat, her Beast thrashed against her chest, snarling its way closer and closer into a terror frenzy.

Her back collided with something, taller than her, and stable.

“Hello?” She whispered out into the void, and it whispered back.

“Annabelle?” It replied.

“Jasper!” She gasped, whipping around and reaching out a hand to grab him. She found his arm, grasping it and trailing downwards until she found his hand. She entangled their fingers together.

“Where are the others?” She asked, a little louder than before. Her voice echoed around them.

“I don’t know.”

“What do we do?”

“I don’t know.”

“Fuck.”

They fell to silence. Complete and utter silence, devoid of breath, or a heartbeat, or a twitch of life.

A scream came from somewhere in the darkness. It was low, a man’s voice followed by--

“Victor!” A terrified cry, definitely Nelli, followed by a desperate sob as she succumbed to tears.

They could hear her soft mutters, something in Spanish, working their way through her soft sighs of despair.

“Nelli!” Annabelle called out.

“Annabelle?” Nelli said back, sniffling, “Is that you?”

“Yeah, me and Jasper! We’re over here Nelli!”

“Where?”

“Just follow the sound my voice, we’re right here!”

“Annabelle, I can’t see.”

“Just, get over here. Please, Nelli,” Annabelle begged, ”Just please, try.”

“I had him,” Nelli said, her voice breaking as it slowly began to fade away, ”He was right there, I wasn’t fast enough.”

“Nelli, please,” Annabelle sobbed once more, tears beginning to prick at the corners of her eyes. She lunged in the direction of Nelli’s voice, but Jasper held her hand tight, his other hand going to her wrist to keep her in place. She struggled against his grip, snarling to break free. He growled back, fingers digging tighter into her skin, as Nelli’s sobs grew in volume around them, encasing them until Annabelle could feel the woman’s despair settling into her heart.

A high-pitched wail pierced the shadows, long and drawn out until it faded into the abyss, and left them both in silence.

“Nelli!” Annabelle shouted after her, the echo of her broken voice once again surrounding them.

There was no reply as the shadows swallowed the sound within their embrace.

“Jasper,” Annabelle moved her other hand to grip their entangled fingers, “Please don’t let go.”

“I won’t,” he said, utterly calm compared to Annabelle’s rising panic. She felt as if the space was enclosing around them, shadowed walls pulling tightly toward her and Jasper, enclosing them into a smaller and smaller cage.

She crept closer to him, pushing herself into his side as a frozen tendril of shadow brushed against her cheek. She gasped, turning her face into the soft fabric of his sweater as tendrils wrapped around her ankle and crept up her leg. All feeling left her as they continued as if she had just plunged her leg into frigid water.

“Don’t let go,” she whimpered into his chest as she lost feeling in her leg.

“I-- I won’t,” he stammered, betraying his nervousness.

The shadows pulled, forcing them apart, floating in the abyss, though their grip held, her two hands clasped around his.

“Annabelle!” Jasper shouted, groaning when his shoulder was pulled out of its socket from the force.

“I got you!” She said, holding on despite the pull on her leg. Jasper’s hand went limp her grasp, but she felt another one go around her forearm, barely holding on.

The shadow tendrils continued up her leg, over her waist and abdomen, sending chills through her body. Her teeth began to chatter, her hands shaking as she shivered in the cold. One of them broke from Jasper’s hand, and then the other, until only his hand on her arm was keeping them together.

“Jasper-” she gasped.

“Anna-”

The shadow pulled on her leg, “Please don’t let go.”

Her wrist escaped from the solid grip of his fingers.

“Annabelle!”

She was thrown into the cold abyss, his cry swallowed by the darkness.

The shadows began their feast.

Return to TOC


	8. isolation

###  isolation

She thrashed against Chauncy’s grip as the heavy ghoul carried her through the graveyard, an immovable piece of stone compared what little strength she had. Chester walked behind them, ready to step in just in case. Chazz was already there when they arrived, her evil bastard piece of shit-for-a-sire with his piercing yellow eyes and his douchebag grin, quirking at the corner of his lips into something far too sinister for her liking. 

“Please don’t do this,” she begged as they approached the open hole at the unmarked grave, dug, apparently, just for her.

“There’s no more time left for words, Nelli dear,” Chazz cooed, hand going to grab her chin, forcing her to look at him, “Only penance will endear you to me once more.”

“Fuck you,” she hissed.

His expression turned to a disappointed sneer, something she was quite used to seeing, “Right then. Chauncy.” He nodded at the ghoul, and all of a sudden she was falling, pushed to the bottom of the grave into the red velvet of an open coffin. The lid slammed down from above her, trapping her within.

She screamed, banging her fists against the lid, using the little room she had to try and push it open. On the other side of the red velvet, she could hear the sound of dirt falling on top of her, burying her alive.

“Please stop,” she yelled, knowing that Chazz would hear her, “Please, I’ll be good, just stop.”

She felt her blood surge within her as she tempted herself to hunger to increase her strength, heaving against the lid, but it didn’t budge. She stopped her struggling, pulled her arms back down to her sides, and calmed herself.

She reached out with her sense, extending her hearing past the closed-off confines of the coffin and the pile of dirt that filled in the hole eight feet above her.

“It’ll just be a few days, dear, and then you can come out,” Chazz whispered directly into her ear, “We’ll see if you're more… agreeable then.”

Return to TOC


	9. stab wound

###  stab wound

“Keep going, come on,” Jasper urged her to continue, stooping down to haul her arm over his shoulder, supporting her as they ran through through twisting alleyways, the wound only centimetres away from her heart bleeding profusely, soaking her jacket with Vitae. She clutched her hand to her chest, bones and muscles grinding together with every painful step, what was left of the broken wooden stake still burrowed beneath her flesh.

“God, this fucking _sucks_,” she moaned, tasting blood in her mouth, almost wishing that she could just dip into torpor to get away from the pain. The stake didn’t immobilize her completely, but everything from the waist down felt uncomfortably numb, pins and needles running up and down her legs.

“You’re fine, just keep going,” Jasper repeated, almost pulling her forward. Her feet stumbled as she ran, one tripping over the other, and she collapsed to the ground, her knees skinning on the pavement as Jasper continued to drag her numb body.

“C’mon, get up,” he said, pulling on her arm.

“No… I can’t,” she moaned, pulling her hand away from him. She dragged her body over to the brick wall of the alleyway, shoving herself behind a garbage dumpster. Her legs lay splayed out in front of her, “I can’t-- I can’t feel my legs.”

Jasper growled in response, kneeling down in front of her, his hands going to tear her shirt away from her skin. The remnant of the stake protruded no more than half an inch out of her chest, blood welling up from around it.

“I think I can take it out,” he said. She nodded, half-dazed from the pain, “Try not to yell.”

She brought her arm up to her mouth, pressing it against her lips to muffle any sound she might make. His hand went to her chest, clawed, jagged nails digging into the flesh that surrounded the wound. The pain was unbearable, and she accidentally bit into her skin, the thick, putrid taste of her own Vitae flooding her mouth as she held down a scream. Something within her raged for her to fight against the hurt, and she thrashed against the wall, Jasper growling for her to stay still as he pressed his arms across her neck.

She wished she could pass out when he finally grasped the stake, slowly pulling it out, grinding against bone and pulling muscle and sinew until it finally broke free with a disgusting squelch. He threw it across the alley as she recovered, blood-red tears streaking down her cheeks.

“‘Can you move?” He asked.

She barely managed a nod before he pulled her up again, supporting her as they continued to run into the night.

Return to TOC


	10. shackled

###  shackled

She barely had the fight left to struggle, fidgeting against the shackles that held her hands above her head, sitting on the floor, her head resting against the cool concrete of the underground Haven. For all Annabelle knew, she was the last one left, the others dragged away some time ago. She pulled at her restraints once more, a weak groan escaping from her lips, but they didn’t break.

Eventually, it did return for her, the empty husk of a monster, mindless and hungry. Bright intelligent eyes hid behind orbs of the darkest night, her friend bereft of all humanity, finally succumbed to the darkness of their very nature.

“Jasper, please,” she moaned feebly as it approached her, unable to fight its monstrous strength as it grabbed her head and forced her neck to bare for its fangs.

Return to TOC


	11. unconscious

###  unconscious

He was so still, she thought, as she sat in her vigil beside the cot, his broken body carefully placed on top of the military-style sheets, hands placed together over his stomach, peaceful. The stillness of death, one could say, but even that she was used to. She saw his corpse every morning she went to sleep in his arms, and every night she woke before him. The stillness of a corpse was familiar.

Torpor, however, was not, even though she foresaw it would inevitable come so. Despite her loud disapproval of his actions, he still got into trouble. And she still remained to pick up the pieces. She wondered if he knew how it felt to hold his body down as it tore at the seams of her mind, twisting away from the pain. If he understood how she bled for him, hunger gnawing at her gut, growing ever closer and closer to her darker nature, all to lift him out of his own. If he was the one in her spot, would he do the same, would he hold her down as she cried? Would he risk the hunger to soothe her own?

Such unnatural stillness, but natural just the same. They were meant to be like this, just bodies, buried or burned, peaceful and still. They were meant to rest.

The bed was small, but she was still able to fit herself next to him, mold the soft lines her body to his sharp edges.

She was not tired, but her eyes fell easily.

The long sleep embraced her with open arms.

Return to TOC


	12. stitches

###  stitches

“Ah, fucking, shit, balls,” Greg growled into the empty room as he dropped his needle onto the floor, watching as it rolled beneath the couch. He was never good at stitching himself up, even worse when using his left hand. Blood oozed from the bullet wound that grazed across his right shoulder, and he swore as he flinched to cover it up, the blood welling between his fingertips.

“Fuck,” he cursed once more, seething at the absurdity of the situation. He looked between the floor and his wound, silently wondering to himself if grabbing the needle was worth staining one of Temple’s white leather couches.

“Do you need help?” she asked from the doorway into the room, jolting out of his thoughts. Her ghostlike figure was illuminated by the light of the room. Clad all in white, the Witch of Griffith Park presented a ghastly figure, floating through the sub basement of the Maharani like the spectre of a grieving widow, the metaphor enhanced by the dark red anguish that surrounded her eyes. He wouldn’t say that he was necessarily scared of her, but she put him on edge, with those tired, sad eyes that demanded your attention.

“Uh… yeah, sure,” he replied gruffly, fidgeting in his seat.

She drifted in like a leaf in the wind, gracefully going to sit next to him on the couch. Looking at the wound, she flicked her fingers toward the floor, and the needle that had gone under the couch zinged into the air, delicately landing with the palm of her hand.

“Do you have… some sort of lighter?” She asked. He reached into a pocket and grabbed his own, handing it out to her.

He had seen Nelli around fire before, the fear that flashed through her eyes whenever she got too close, and how near she had been to falling into her darker nature because of it. He watched on as Eva opened the lighter, and clicked it to a flame without even flinching, heating the needle over the flame, continuing even as her skin turned black from the contact. Afterwards, she threaded the needle with the precise hand of someone who had done this before.

He didn’t back away anymore when cold skin touched his own, and she was truly cold, his shoulder going numb at her touch. He couldn’t watch while she was sewing his skin shut, but he barely felt the prick of the needle, or the pull of the thread. She remained unnaturally still the entire time, her attention entirely focused on his wound.

She needed something to distract her, perhaps.

“You’re, uh, you’re pretty good at that,” he remarked after she finished, awkwardly looking at the stitches.

She didn’t smile, “Thank you. I… I used to be a nurse,” she turned to leave, floating back toward the hallway.

“I’m sorry,” he called after her, stopping her at the door, “For-- well, I guess we weren’t fast enough.”

He watched as her fingers clenched at the door frame, her entire body going stiff for a minute before she responded, “There wasn’t anything else we could do. Thank you, for your help, Agent Dimitrios.”

Return to TOC


	13. "don't move"

###  "don't move"

They sneaked through the hidden passageways of the _Maharani_, Jasper in the lead, pulling her behind him. The horrors had taken over the club, the unannounced attack of the Tzimisce quick and bloody, cutting down a hundred club-goers in mere seconds before the humans began to scatter, which led the twisted Kindred in a delightful hunt through the grand establishment. As far as she knew, they hadn’t found the hidden hallways yet, but it wouldn’t take long for them to be found.

Lost in thought, she hadn’t realized that Jasper had stopped in front of her, and she ran into his back. About to ask him what was wrong, he interrupted her with a low growl.

“Don’t. Move.”

Peaking over his shoulder, she had to quickly press the palm of her hand to her mouth to stifle her gasp of horror. 

She had seen the product of the Tzimisce’s flesh-sculpting running through the halls of the club. They had brought their own pets with them, the white, eyeless, wolf-like creatures with limbs that bent the wrong way, skin stretching over bones until jagged cartilage broke through, welling up in bright red, sticky, blood. Not being able to see, they seemed to rely on scent to navigate, and their hearing to hunt down their prey. They added to their ranks with each human they cut down, pulling limbs from their sockets and bending them into unnatural places, moulding flesh and bone and sinew like one would mould clay into a twisted perversion of creation, all the while the screams of their victims grew into ear-piercing wails as their vocal chords were slowly restricted.

The horrors were always screaming. That’s how you knew they were coming.

There were also those they did not turn into their eldritch flesh-hounds, those that contributed to the mass of writhing bodies that towered above the club floor, people crafted together, legs and arms writhing and squirming in a patch quilt of skin tones. She only saw it once, but it was enough to have the memory etched in her mind.

Looking out into the narrow hallway in front of them, she saw two familiar figures. Like the rest, their eyes were gone, plucked out of their sockets with flesh crafted over to stop the bleeding. Their lips had been pulled back in a perverse imitation of a smile, their cheeks and gums eroded away to bare bright white teeth, sharp and bloody. They were hunched over, their elongated arms scratching the floor with their knuckles, spindly fingers stretching into deadly claws. Nelli’s beret was grafted onto her skull. Victor’s tie was undone, woven into his skin like a braid around his neck.

She froze against Jasper’s back, clutching the dark material of his sweater between her fingers. Even with constant screams and high-pitched wails of victims in the background piercing her ears, she could still hear the shuffling of her two friends as they sniffed the air, hunting for their prey.

Return to TOC


	14. adrenaline

###  adrenaline

In the end, they couldn’t have stopped her. Anger is a hard thing to fight, righteous anger even more so, and all-consuming anger, well, nearly impossible. With the Beast whispering in her ear, it hardly mattered. It drowned out everything: reason, emotion, even her own humanity.

They had once so mocked her for it: Annabelle the pacifist, who would rather stand in front of a crowd and preach her prophecy of freedom, who would incite others to violence before she ever stepped a foot out into the battlefield herself. The upstart fledgling, six months young, with ideas of grandeur that seemed to defy the status quo, but only proved to display her immaturity. Her prophecy was not a dream of light, but a precursor of destruction.

The Beast had a list.

Vannevar for Victor, murdered on a diplomatic mission, what was left of his head sent to the front door of the _Maharani_. She took his head in turn, twisting until his spine snapped and skin tore, blood splattering the marble floor.

Suzanne for Nelli, poisoned by love, succumbing deeper and deeper into sleep until she could not be woken up once more. Annabelle pried her heart from her chest, crushing it into dust between her fingers, crying as she watched her love meet the Final Death.

Aurora for Jasper, torn limb from limb by hungry shadows. She did not put up a fight, the toll for the death of her brother already paid in full.

Strauss for Eva, who was so driven by the madness he created in her that she stepped out into the sun herself. She plunged a grenade into his gut, screaming in terror as the flesh of her arm burned from his wards, pulled the pin and watched the bastard scatter into pieces, the spray of blood blinding her.

The Los Angeles Court for the Anarch Free States. If they had doubted her before, let them come and see what her anger had wrought.

Afterward, she staggered out of the Getty, the Beast passing from her mind, leaving a trail of bloody footsteps behind her, covered in the bright red Vitae of the Kindred she had executed. Looking up into the sky, she saw the hazy orange of the rising Los Angeles sun. Looking down, she saw the blood on her hands, soaked into her clothing, pressed into the crease of her fingernails. 

She collapsed to the ground, looking up to the sky once more, and begged for the sun to take her.

Return to TOC


	15. tear-stained

###  tear-stained

Two hours after dawn and he still hadn’t appeared, the rest of them waiting in Victor’s office to talk everything over. The tension of his anger hung in the air like smoke, rising from his quarters in the sub-basement, where he tore through furniture, snarling like an animal, his Beast let loose in gleeful destruction.

Annabelle was the first to speak, “I guess I’ll--”

“No,” Nelli interrupted, the surprise on her face matching the other’s, “I’ll go.”

“Nelli-” Victor started.

“I’ll. Go.” She snapped.

Without another word, she marched out of the office, waving away Campbell as he moved to follow her. She took the stairs instead of the elevator, giving herself time to walk down into the basement, time to convince herself she was doing the right thing.

The sounds of outrage had disappeared from behind his door, and she did not knock before she turned the handle and opened it inwards. The room itself was destroyed, furniture rendered into pieces, holes puncturing the walls, black and white fabric ripped into the bits, fallen on the floor like ash and snow. The lights flickered on and off, but it was the light from the hall that vaguely illuminated his figure.

His body, as unnatural was it was, looked even more so curled in the corner of the room, his long limbs attempting to take up as little space as possible.

“Jasper?” She said, stepping towards him, crouching low to the floor until she stood on her knees in front of him.

He did not reply to her, but she could hear him speak, muttering to himself, She’s safe, She’s safe, She’s safe, It’s not you, It’s not you, It’s not--

“Jasper,” She tried to get his attention.

He did not stop.

Looking at him closely, he was hunched around his hands, trapped between his knees and his chest, clutching something between them. She did not ask his permission to take it, but he did not seem able to give it. Slowly reaching out, she pried his fingers open to take the crumpled piece of paper from his grasp.

She did not try to read the note, written in cursive, neat and quick. She doubted she would have even been able to, the once white-paper she held in her hands, soaked in the dry dark stains and the wet new droplets of tears shed in blood.

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	16. scars

###  scars

“Oh, Annie,” Elle sighed, the prickling of blood-red tears welling up at the corners of her eyes as she swept aside her girlfriend’s hair, revealing the large scar that started above her right eye, crossed off a chunk of her nose, and ended at her lower jaw, “What’s happened to you?”

Annabelle attempted a smile, pulling at the crack of white mottled skin across her face, “I came for you. I said would. When it was safe.”

She was almost frantic in her attention, hands flitting across Ellenore’s face, carding through her hair, running up and down the sleeves of her shirt. She was at the edge of breakdown as well, the several months lost between now and when they were last together piling on top of each other. 

“I know, I know you did,” Ellenore said through her tears, cupping her girlfriend’s cheeks within her hands. She could see more scars continuing down from Annabelle’s collarbone below the line of her t-shirt, dark red lines that spread like lightning across her upper chest, “But look what happened along the way.”

“Oh, you know,” Annabelle chuckled non-sensically, “Just an asshole Tremere, and vamp-killing swords, and homicidal shadow people. All in a night’s work for the leader of the revolution.”

“Sounds like you’ve been through a lot, babe.”

“Yeah,” Annabelle sagged, eyes looking far into the distance above Ellenore’s left shoulder, “Yeah, it’s been a lot.”

Ellenore brought her close, folding her girlfriend in her arms so she could rest her chin atop her head.

“But the scars are sexy, yeah?”

She chuckled, “Yes. Super sexy”

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	17. pinned down

###  pinned down

Nelli heaved at the large piece of concrete, risking hunger and several broken nails in an attempt to lift it. The surge of Vitae through her muscles was dizzying and painful, like acid soaking through bare skin. The ceiling of the old warehouse above them continued to crumble, a large chunk of it falling to the ground, not five feet away from her.

She startled at the sound of it, halting her attempts for a second to breathe before returning to desperately clawing at the concrete.

“Nelli,” Victor groaned from under it, “Nelli, you have to--”

“Shut the fuck up, Victor,” she growled under her breathe, once more attempting to lift the concrete upon him. It moved an inch before she had to set it back down again.

“The sun is coming up, Nelli, you have to find Annabelle and Jasper.”

“They can handle themselves,” she tried once more. No luck.

“Nelli!” His voice echoed through the broken warehouse.

She stopped in place, “I can’t-- I can’t leave you here.”

“Yes, you can.”

She turned to look at him, his head sticking out from under the concrete where his body was pinned down, “Please don’t--”

“Go, Nelli.”

Logic told her he was right, though she had to take a moment to convince herself of the truth, “Okay.”

“Thank you,” he sighed, closing his eyes.

“I-- I love you, Victor Temple.”

“I know.”

She stood up, forcing herself to look away, “I’ll take care of the kids.”

His quiet chuckle followed her as she ran through the building, looking for shelter in the face of the rising sun.

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	18. "stay with me"

###  "stay with me"

“Chloe can you-- Will you please stay with me?” Eva asked from the lowest stair of the cottage porch, looking out into the surrounding forest, covered with snow from the Northern Quebecois winter. She wore her normal dress, blending into her surroundings, except for her now bright-red hair, bloody crimson against her ivory pallor.

There were no less than complicated feelings between the two of them, yet Chloe sat next to her despite them. Despite the thin amount of Vitae running through her veins, she still felt the need to breathe, making small clouds of fog in the light of the early moments of the sunrise, and she still felt the cold, curling her body around her legs in an attempt to warm up.

“I’m so sorry, Chloe,” Eva whispered between them, eyes upon the slowly brightening sky, “I have done so much wrong to you, and Jas--”

She choked on his name, hand going to cover her mouth, “He loved you so much, and I--”

Chloe didn’t want to hear her say it, taking Eva’s hand within her own, “He loved you too.”

She laughed pitifully, “That’s nice of you to say,” her gaze never turned away from the sky above them, now awash in pinks and oranges, “Be kind to Annabelle. Thank Victor and Nelli for their friendship.”

“Are you scared?” Chloe asked, unable to face her as the sun’s first rays broke through the tips of the pine trees.

“No. I never have been.”

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	19. muffled scream

###  muffled scream

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	20. asphyxiation

###  asphyxiation

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	21. trembling

###  trembling

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	22. laced drink

###  laced drink

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	23. hallucination

###  hallucination

There was so much shouting, all three of them at each other’s throats, Jasper’s growling timbre matching Nelli’s higher-pitched yelling, and Victor raising his voice to boom above the two of them. X was surprised neither of them had come to blows yet, even with Victor standing between the two others, both of them itching for their knives and various other pointy things.

(First Nelli would stab him, then he would stab her, then she would slash his throat, and he’d attack her with a bite… No, he would slash _her_ throat… No maybe he just outright bit her? Either way, things would just go to shit.)

He cowered in the corner, hands clasped over his ears, the angry voices in the room and his head competing with each other to give him a headache. Annabelle stood next to him, comforting hand on his shoulder, turning his head to focus on her instead of the raging scene in front of him. Her eyes were always so calm. And Kind. Kinder than anyone he had ever met before.

She looked at the others, kind eyes worried and sad. Why was she so sad? Annabelle should never be sad. She opened her mouth to speak, interrupted by the other’s raised voices. She tried to speak over them, but she was too quiet, her voice blurred and hazy.

“Why won’t you listen to her?” X asked the others, speaking loud enough to hear is own voice over the hands he still had clasped over his ears.

The others turned to look at him.

“She just wants you to stop,” X continued, staring at Annabelle, who nodded him along, “She just wants you to get along. Why won’t you listen?”

He looked to the others, Nelli’s hand fisted in the collar of Jasper’s sweater, Victor hands barely managing to force the two of them apart.

“Who, X?” Victor asked.

“Annabelle--” He said, quickly cut short has Jasper lunged at him, lifting him up by the throat and slamming him back against the wall.

“Don’t say her name,” The Nosferatu growled, his voice broken, the crazed look in his eye all too familiar.

X looked to Annabelle. She reached out to Jasper, placing her hand on his shoulder. She looked so sad.

“She’s worried about you, Jasper,” X spoke through the iron grip around his throat.

“Stop it, X.”

“She just wants you to be happy,” X continued.

“X--”

“Please, you’re making her sad. Why is she so sad?”

“Annabelle is dead, X!” Jasper shouted, pulling X’s gaze back over to his aggressor. Blood tracked down his cheeks, spreading across the grey skin and dripping off his chin.

“No-- no you’re just not listening,” X shook in his grasp, looking back to where Annabelle had been only seconds before to find her gone, “I just have to find her again, she’ll come back, you just need to listen--”

Jasper cut through his rambling, “She's gone, X, you’re just seeing things.”

“No! No, no, no, no, no! She was right here, she was--”

“Let him go, Jasper,” Nelli said from across the room.

The pressure around his neck was released, and he collapsed to the floor, shaking hands carding through his hair. Annabelle crouched in front of him, sad eyes watching on as he looked at her through his bloody tears.

The others left the room, leaving him behind with the spectre of his best friend.

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	24. bleeding out

###  bleeding out

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	25. secret injury

###  secret injury

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	26. humiliation

###  humiliation

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	27. abandoned

###  abandoned

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	28. ransom

###  ransom

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	29. beaten

###  beaten

Strauss’ boot came down across Jasper’s face, breaking his nose, and snapping his neck to the side. He could taste his own Vitae, it’s sick, bitter taste contrasting to the sweet life-giving nectar that he was used to feeding on. The laugh ripped through his throat unbidden, a tired, maniacal thing that echoed through the chamber. It made the pain easier to deal with.

“Fuck you,” Jasper groaned, spitting the blood in his mouth onto the cold marble floor. He tried to turn over to get up on his hands and knees, but a quick kick to the stomach forced him back onto the floor, “Okay, I’ll stay here.”

“I do not wish to resort to further measures, Nosferatu,” Strauss all but growled, his stoic demeanour gone in the wake of his rage at the young Kindred.

That was funny too, and it made Jasper laugh, even more, giggling as he rolled around on the marble in a pool of his own blood. Like the stab wounds weren’t enough, or the brand of the hot poker on his skin, or the feeling of fingers and metal in his mouth, plucking out his sharp canines as he fought back against the straps across his chest.

“I do not find the humour in this,” Strauss said, picking him up from the ground by his sweater and throwing his body against the wall. He smashed into the dark wooden panelling before falling back to the ground.

“But it’s funny, don’t you see?” Jasper asked, wheezing through the pain. He had lost feeling in his legs, “You’re going to keep beating me, like the asshole you are, and I’m still not going to tell you where she is.”

“I somehow doubt your will to be stronger than the persuasive power of torture, Nosferatu,” Strauss said, cracking the coal-hot iron poker against Jasper’s back. His Beast screamed from within him, boiling to the surface as he tossed and turned through the agony of his sizzling skin. He blacked out during the episode, only coming to when the danger of fire had passed.

“You don’t get it,” he replied, smiling deliriously, “I won’t tell you shit. You can do whatever you want to me, beat me, torture me, use whatever painful sorcery you can think of in that twisted head of yours, and I won’t give away a thing.”

Strauss walked over to a table on the side of the room, covered in sharp, disturbing instruments, “And why is that?”

Jasper shook his head, looking up to the light blue sky of the ceiling, “Because I don’t know. I don’t know where she is.”

The room went dead silent for three agonizing seconds, before Strauss’s growl ripped through the chamber. The table he stood at was flipped over, the metal instruments on top of it sent clanging to the floor. He turned around to face Jasper, the red lenses of his sunglasses shattered to reveal bright red pupils in dark pits of black. He lifted up his arm, clawed hand turned upward as he spoke words of power clear into the air.

Jasper opened his mouth in a silent scream as his blood boiled from within his veins.

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	30. numb

###  numb

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	31. recovery

###  recovery

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	32. embrace

###  embrace

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End file.
